Quiet Again

A bright, sunny start but with still the nagging northerly that’s holding up a flood of birds just south of here. There was a hint of finches on the move this morning, nothing too obvious just a few Lesser Redpolls flying over, Siskins high in the trees and a Brambling, the latter a good find for April. 

I’d started at Fluke Hall, checked the sea wall for Wheatears and pipits of which there were none but noted small numbers of both Linnets and Goldfinches moving along the hedgerow and the sea wall. There seemed to be little genuinely “on the move” as distinct from local birds, so I then quietly searched the woodland and woodland edge as far as the “Keep Out” signs allowed, hoping for maybe a Ring Ouzel - just Blackbirds of course. 

Blackbird

Bramblings have such a distinctive, nasal, wheezy call that if one or more is about there is no denying it. Likewise Lesser Redpolls and Siskins, two members of the finch family which have also have highly characteristic and unmistakeable calls. All three species were moving through the tree tops but I managed to see a Lesser Redpoll only. Into the notebook went “one” of each although later at Lane Ends there would be 3 Lesser Redpolls and 2 Siskin to add to the resident Chaffinches. 

Brambling

Also here at Fluke Hall, a resident Pied Wagtail, singing Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler, 1 Great-spotted Woodpecker, a pair of Kestrels at the box and 1 Little Egret on the marsh. 

The maize fields which have proved a magnet for many birds during the winter have now dried to such an extent that they have been ploughed in preparation for planting with the result that the few birds which remain consist of several pairs of Shelduck and Lapwings. 

Lane Ends produced the aforesaid Lesser Redpolls and Siskins, 2 Jays, singing Chiffchaff and Willow Warbler, 2 Little Egret and 2 Little Grebe. 

At Pilling Water - a Grey Heron, the Green Sandpiper, 15 Redshank, 1 Little Egret and on the marsh still 450+ Pink-footed Geese. Otherwise the birding was extremely quiet and unproductive and a change of wind direction would help bring in more migrants. 

 Grey Heron

There are more birds and birding from Another Bird Blog very soon. Call in again for a full of activity time.

Linking today to Anni's Birding Blog and  Eileen's Saturday Blog.

Was That a Year?

Now’s the time when many birding bloggers stuffed with turkey, bloated by booze or besieged with once-a -year visitors make excuses as to why there’s a lack of posts on their blog. I’m no exception to the general festive rule so my excuse is the identical to the above. Added to that we are now in the middle of yet more gales with both power cuts and 70 mph winds last night, so no prospect of birding just yet.

In pure self-indulgence I’m posting some personal highlights pictures of 2013 in a month by month sequence. It’s mostly the birds which stirred the senses with odd shots of the places where memories are made. 

January is time to escape from the grey, cold skies of a UK winter and grab some welcome sunshine, if only for a few weeks. We were stunned by the long, wide, sandy expanse of the beaches of Fuerteventura, some several miles long and just begging to be walked. When tired of the walking I sat on some quiet rocks near the shore and took pictures of a Whimbrel, a shy wader species I had longed to photograph. 

Fuerteventura

Whimbrel

February continued where I left off in the early part of the year in ringing birds out on the frozen mossland. Brambling winters don’t happen too often, 2012 and 2013 being the first for several years and a winter when I caught 66 of the striking finches. One bore a Norwegian ring, another one later captured in Norway. 

Brambling

March, and as the ice lingered on there were still Bramblings to be seen along with a good number of common Reed Buntings. Bird ringing is not about catching rare or scarce birds. Catching and ringing birds is about monitoring the populations of common birds, an important and vital job in these worrying days of wholesale declines. Many a trainee ringer has fallen by the wayside when realising that rare birds appear in mist nets on equally rare days and that the humdrum of catching common birds is mostly unexciting hard graft. Imagine my surprise on 15th March to find a Little Bunting in the net, an agreeable but unimportant addition to the winter catch of 72 Reed Buntings. 

Little Bunting

April is Wheatear Time. The migrant chats appear along the coast on their way to the uplands of the UK or Scandinavia. A few are destined for Iceland or even distant Greenland. The birds are hungry following their journey from further south and can rarely resist a mealworm, so I send them on their way north bearing a ring which tells others that they arrived there via the UK. 

Wheatear

May usually involves Menorca. The island draws us back with its rugged and gentle landscape, quiet roads, friendly locals and spring sunshine. Birds are hard to find but rewarding when you do, unimpeded by crowds of target birders running here, there and everywhere. The Hoopoes use the same nest site and feeding locations every year. Creatures of habit also use the same café for a spot of lunch. 

Hoopoe

Menorcan lunch

June and it’s time to find and ring some wader chicks. The task is to find them in the literal sense but also find them before they disappear as a species from our diminishing wetlands and intensified farms. Redshanks aren’t the easiest to come across, in fact they are damned difficult to locate, sprint like Usain Bolt and have protective parents that shame many a human. The first I ringed for a good few years. 

Redshank chick

July is a time when birds and birders go quiet. There nothing much to do except feed the kids and stay around the house, least of all travel very far to discover new things when migration time is far away. Skylarks aren’t the easiest of nests to find but I daren’t go near this one as the size of those grubs says the chicks are big and possibly out of the nest. Skylark chicks often leave the nest long before they can fly, an evolutionary adaptation which increases their chance of survival. 

Skylark

August often sits on the fence between summer and autumn not knowing which way to jump. The cold, late spring of 2013 made late broods last into August and wader chicks about to fly. My personal favourite picture of 2013 just happens to be my favourite species the Lapwing. With luck the spikiy young Lapwing below will live 15/20 years. Let’s hope there are places for it to live 20 years from now. 

Lapwing

September produced an unexpected holiday in Greece when our daughter Joanne married on the island of Skiathos. Two weeks of unbroken sunshine with a few birds thrown in. A battered old Suzuki Jimny served as a passable hide to photograph the normally unapproachable Woodchat Shrike and a superb vehicle to reach Kastro where we enjoyed numerous Eleanor’s Falcons. So many reasons to return in 2014 to the tranquil haven of Hotel Ostria owned by the delightful Mathinou family.

Skiathos, Greece

Makis and aubergines at Hotel Ostria

Woodchat Shrike

October was quiet with subdued migration on our west facing coast. Red-breasted Mergansers eluded me for years, shy birds unwilling to have a portrait taken until after a couple of days of rough weather I came across a young bird at Pilling. I got my picture on a grey, cloudy day but wonder what happened to the bird and if there will be another chance to photograph a merganser so close. 

Red-breasted Merganser

November turned up a few Snow Buntings, scarce in recent years. So infrequent have they become in recent years that any discovered immediately become target birds for those less inclined to actually find any birds for themselves. I had a Snow Bunting to myself for a while at Pilling and spent time lying spread-eagled on the tideline to take a few portraits as the bird fed unconcerned at my presence. 

Snow Bunting

December 2013 is ending as it began in a raging storm and more to come. In between the birding was hard slog with not much to show for time spent in the field. I searched my archives for December to find the best picture of a month’s efforts, a mediocre shot of an above average bird. Things can only get better in 2014. 

Curlew

I wish followers, friends and occassional visitors to Another Bird Blog a Happy New Year. May all your birding days be filled with discovery and joy.

Linking today to Eileen's Saturday Blog , Camera Critters and Anni's Blog.

Tuesday’s Trip

Today there is detail of a Brambling recovery plus a little birding news. 

On March 2nd 2013 at Out Rawcliffe I caught an adult male Brambling bearing a Norwegian ring - Stavanger ED78766. The photograph below is of the actual bird after I managed to locate the pic on my PC. 

Brambling

The details have just arrived from the BTO via Norwegian ringers who inform us that the Brambling was originally ringed at Randaberg, Rogaland, Norway on 11th October 2011. Randaberg is close to the Norwegian coast and just north of Stavanger, an area where many, many thousands of Bramblings pass through each autumn on their way to winter in Europe. We don’t know where ED 78766 spent the winter of 2011/12 but we do know that 2012/13 was a good winter to find Bramblings in the UK, this being the second such recovery from the ringing at Rawcliffe in 2012/13. 

Brambling - Norway to Out Rawcliffe

This morning I headed to Conder Green for a spot of birding. Just through Cockerham village I noticed many hundreds of Swallows along roadside wires and in the air. Looking right I remembered the large field of maize crop I pass often and from where the Swallows had obviously just woken up after their overnight roost.

Swallow

Conder was pretty quiet, just as it has been in recent days. The now single Little Ringed Plover was still there, as was the Spotted Redshank, 3 Greenshank, 1 Common Sandpiper, 60+ Redshanks and 300+ Lapwings. The rest of the birds came in two by twos - 2 Teal, 2 Wigeon, 2 Stock Dove, 2 Pied Wagtail, 2 Cormorant and 2 Little Egret. 

Little Ringed Plover

Little Ringed Plover

Little Ringed Plover

 

Mute Swan and Cormorant

With nothing much happening at sleepy Glasson I decided to try my luck at Pilling and the incoming tide. 

Canal Boats at Glasson

This wasn’t much better, a walk to Fluke and back giving a good show of herons - 5 Little Egret and 4 Grey Heron, but the tide a little too distant for decent wader numbers. There was a Buzzard circling over Lane Ends and when I approached Pilling Water, 2 juvenile Kestrels from the nearby nest box. 

Kestrel

There are released Mallards at the wildfowlers pools and in the ditches, easy to identify as they just stick together in a tight bunch on the water as if still in penned captivity. Teal are beginning to arrive in numbers with 140+ today, some already finding the wheat put out for them about the pools. A Green Sandpiper today but no sign of the usual Greenshank. 

Any day now the 2000+ Red-legged Partridge will be released - that should bring in a few harriers and Buzzards, keep the Peregrine happy and also provide some entertainment for Another Bird Blog. 

Linking today to Stewart's Gallery.

Sunday Spot And Finch Finds

There's a little news from Conder after a quick but quiet visit, followed by details of recent ringing recoveries. Just 3 Common Sandpipers today as the species' onward migration continues. Two Greenshank, 1 Spotted Redshank, 50+ Redshank, 18 Lapwing, 15 Oysterctacher, 3 Grey Heron. Usual counts of Reed Bunting, Whitethroat, Sedge Warbler, Shelduck, Goldeneye etc. Here's an Oysterctacher I surprised at Conder - too close for a full framer, plus a handsome gull pictured at Glasson Dock. 

Oystercatcher

Lesser Black-backed Gull  

From the BTO there are three ringing recoveries concerning birds of the finch family captured at Out Rawcliffe, Lancashire and a fourth one of a Siskin captured in Will's Garstang garden. All four records show typical springtime movements of the species concerned. 

2012/2013 was a “Brambling winter”, when wintry conditions on the Continent forced many Bramblings westwards and into the UK, providing bird watchers and ringers a chance to observe or handle these handsome birds. Y461678, a first winter female Brambling I caught on 13 December 2012 was later recaptured by ringers at Grasbakken, Ringsaker, Norway on 4 May 2013. The latter is an interesting date since by May 4th the Brambling may have been still on migration or with more distance to travel within Norway, north and east to Finland or even further east to Russia. The distance between Out Rawcliffe and Ringsaker, Norway is 1134 kms, the elapsed time 142 days.

Brambling - Lancashire to Norway

Female Brambling

In addition to this recovery there is still an outstanding record of a male Brambling bearing a Stavanger, Norway ring ED8766, the bird captured at Out Rawcliffe on 2nd March 2013, the original ringing details yet to be notified.  

The next record concerns an adult male Lesser Redpoll Y461490 I trapped on spring passage at Out Rawcliffe on 25 March 2012. This was a period of intense Lesser Redpoll migration when many were very noticeably heading north but only a small proportion trapped. The bird was later later found dead, the victim of a domestic cat the following year on 25 May 2013 at Beith, North Ayrshire, Scotland, a distance of 238 kms from Rawcliffe Moss. By late May 2013 the bird was almost certainly breeding in the Beith locality after spending another winter many miles south of there. 

Lesser Redpoll - Lancashire to Ayrshire

Male Lesser Redpoll

Goldfinch D130275 a juvenile female travelled from Wigan, Greater Manchester on 14th October 2012 to Out Rawcliffe, Lancashire on 30 April 2013. The months of both October and April are classic migration times for Goldfinch. There's no way of knowing where D130275 spent the intervening time, except to surmise that it probably travelled south of Manchester in the autumn of 2012 and north of Rawcliffe in the following spring. 

Goldfinch - Wigan to Out Rawcliffe

Female Goldfinch

A male Siskin D204043 captured and ringed at Boyton, Suffolk on 6th April 2013 was recaptured near Garstang, Lancashire on 27th April 2013. Almost certainly this bird had wintered across the English Channel and was on its way north to Scotland or beyond when intercepted. The elapsed time is just 21 days, the distance involved 343 kms. 

 

  Siskin - Suffolk to Lancashire

Male Siskin

More news, views and pictures soon from Another Bird Blog.

Owls About And Not Much Else

The outside temperature read minus 1 °C again, and as I took the frost guard off the windscreen the local Tawny Owls were busy making a fair old din. They called away to each other, tempting me to go and take a look, but it was too dark. Anyway I’ve tried it before and they just fly to their other spots where they continue their canoodling duet. 

Through Hambleton village a Little Owl flew across the highway ahead of the car and towards the darkness on the other side of the road. I was on the way out to the moss again hoping to kick off the migrant year with a Chiffchaff, maybe even a Willow Warbler. As I walked into the plantation I could see the local Barn Owl plugging away again in the distance but when I got back to the car the owl was gone, hopefully back to the barn with a vole or two from the frosty fields. 

Don’t forget to “click the pics” for a light box show, I think Blogger have sorted the problem for now. 

Barn Owl

I caught the Chiffchaff but not much else during an extremely quiet couple of hours. Just seven birds caught from the bare, leafless and insect free plantation - 2 Goldfinch with singles of Brambling, Chiffchaff, Reed Bunting, Robin and Blue Tit, all from the feeding station. 

Chiffchaff

Of over 400 Bramblings ringed by the ringing group in almost thirty years today’s is only the second one ringed in the month of April and an indicator of how Bramblings are very late in returning north this year. 

Brambling

Goldfinch

The birding was equally as quiet as the ringing, almost non-existent in fact with 4 Fieldfares and similar numbers of Meadow Pipits high overhead in the clear morning sky the only real signs of bird movement. Otherwise all was local stuff once again with 2 Buzzard, 2 Kestrel, 2 Mistle Thrush, 3 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 3 Corn Bunting, 4 Yellowhammer, 15 Tree Sparrow and 40+ Curlew. 

On the way home I stopped to check out the Little Owl pair where I found them both on the lookout for daylight food, and like me puffed up against the still cold air. 

Little Owl

I had to stop the car on the way home when the mobile rang from a lady in Knott End who’d seen a single Waxwing in gardens near the promenade. 

Waxwing

I thanked the lady for the info but there was no time for a Waxwing twitch after I’d spent a good fifteen minutes with the owls. I needed to get home, sort the pictures and grab a bite to eat myself - a birder’s work is never done. 

Log in soon for more news and views and find out if the Little Owls pics got sorted.In the meantime take a look at Stewart's Photo Gallery on the other side of the world down in Aussie.

A Bad Barn Owl Day

It started off as a Good Barn Owl day when half- a-mile from home I spotted one of the local Barn Owls hunting the roadside fields in the half light of dawn. Heck I’d not travelled more than another 200 yards when there was a second Barn Owl, but this time one lying dead at the roadside. After jumping out of the car to retrieve the body of the poor bird I could see that it was the victim of a vehicle some hours previously, the lifeless body now cold and feathers with a layer of overnight frost. The bird’s left leg bore a BTO ring GC29419 - I will post the record online to the BTO today. 

What made the event even sadder was that the bird was so close to the first owl I’d watched just seconds before so I knew they must be a pair. The morning had quickly turned into a bad Barn Owl day. When back home I examined the corpse more closely, the lack of obvious barring on the tail and the primary feathers, coupled with the extensive white throat pointed to the dead bird being the male. Collisions with traffic (mostly road, but also trains) are the one of the main causes of death to Barn Owls, the other most frequent reason being starvation during weather which prevents them from hunting or when prey is scarce. 

Barn Owl

I was on the way to Rawcliffe and the feeding station, passing Town End when yet another Barn Owl appeared ahead of the car but luckily this one took evasive action by flying off pretty smartish. 

With the drama over I reached the farm and tried to concentrate on ringing and birding even though I hoped to see more of Barn Owls. I set the camera on ISO3200 and waited in the car for a while, warming hat, gloves and feet with the full-on heater before daring to venture off into the cold air to erect nets; instead I hoped for glimpses of the Barn Owl pair from the next farm. Sure enough one appeared not too far away but flying quickly away to avoid an encounter with the silver coloured car which lives on the track it wants to search. After several minutes of searching distant ground the owl turned and headed in my direction, turning the morning into a still sad but not completely bad owl day with a couple of grainy shots. Those are willow catkins in the background which might as well be snowflakes so cold is the weather now.

Barn Owl

Barn Owl

Both the ringing and birding were extremely quiet and after some clear nights I do now suspect that the vast majority of Bramblings and Chaffinches of recent weeks have headed north and even the reliable Reed Buntings thinned out. Just 8 birds for my troubles - 2 Brambling, 2 Chaffinch and 4 Goldfinch. A couple of interesting weight extremes came to hand with a worryingly light adult male Brambling of 18.4 grams and a heavy female Chaffinch of 24.5 grams and bulging biceps. 

Brambling

Here on the moss Spring migration is hard to detect in a normal year, doubly difficult this year and on this occasion less than 10 Meadow Pipits and 2 Pied Wagtails were an improvement on the week before. A single Linnet is harder to place in context but 1 Peregrine, 2 Little Owl, 2 Buzzard, 2 Kestrel, 2 Great-spotted Woodpecker, 25+ Corn Buntings and 11 Skylarks are definitely local birds. 

The Corn Buntings appear to spend most of their time hiding in the hedgerow from passing traffic but at this time of year the winter flocks have normally broken up and the birds returned to wherever they originate. 

Corn Bunting

It was about 10am when the wintering Hen Harrier gave a rapid fly through, a lone and distant flash of pale which looked for all the world like a Barn Owl until binoculars found it still hurrying east. Curlews and Golden Plovers remain on the fields towards Pilling, 130 and 40+ respectively. 

Well it wasn’t a bad day after all, life and death and all it entails is part of the joy of discovery. 

Join Another Bird Blog soon for more news and views plus encounters with birds and wildlife.

He Ain't Heavy, He's My Goldcrest

A quick look at Fluke Hall this morning revealed not a lot happening on the migration scene again. A Chiffchaff in the same stretch of hedgerow as on Wednesday, a dozen or so Pied Wagtails and 5 Meadow Pipits at the midden, one of the resident Mistle Thrushes, and then close-by a Sparrowhawk dashing along the ditches.  So the rest of this post is devoted to Thursday morning's ringing and birding Out Rawcliffe way.
        
The early 6am start meant I got to watch the local Barn Owl pair hunting before the fields became busy with the noise and activity of Spring tractors; ringers are often up and about before farmers but don’t have the staying power to work the fields as quickly or effectively as two Barn Owls or a John Deere. 

The nagging and bitterly cold easterly wind finally relented for just a few hours, enough to have a crack at the feeding station. The owls had my attention for a good thirty minutes, saving me from the cold until a few birds appeared in the nets to keep icy hands busy, but then as early as 0930 the wind re-energised itself and forced an end to my heroics. 

Fifteen birds caught - 11 new and 4 recaptures. New birds; 3 Brambling, 3 Reed Bunting, 2 Goldfinch, 2 Chaffinch and in the only sign of Spring arrivals, a single Goldcrest. The recaptures were 3 Brambling from recent weeks and 1 Chaffinch. The female Chaffinch was first ringed here in 2007 as a juvenile, recaptured in 2009 but no other captures until today, with the bird now a respectable age for a Chaffinch. While Chaffinches can live to 10 or 12 years of age their average lifespan is much shorter with only a very few fledglings surviving their first winter. 

Chaffinch

The migratory Goldcrest is the smallest British bird, almost always weighing in somewhere between 5 and 5.5 grams, with this morning’s example proving something of a heavyweight at 6.3 grams but still less than a ten-pence coin which tips the scales at 6.5. 

Goldcrest 

 Ten Pence coin

From recent visits to the moss I reckoned the regular Bramblings numbered 10 or 12, always around the seed drop zone, scattering far and wide into the trees as soon as look at them, so catching six today confirms the suspected number as a likely guess. 

Brambling

Brambling

Still the Reed Buntings surprise with a daily and continual turnover of new birds and three more second calendar year males today. 

Reed Bunting

Maybe the other sign of Spring was 14 Fieldfare heading noisily north, or perhaps the flock of Golden Plover, 90+ strong, black faces and black bellies, some in fluty song, even though they stayed put on the stubble field with more than 100 Curlew. A few of the Curlews bubbled up too, but just like the goldies didn’t go anywhere except for a fly around the field. 

“Others” noted. 3 Buzzard, 2 Kestrel, 2 Jay, 8 Corn Bunting, 2 Yellowhammer, 1 Pied Wagtail, 20+Tree Sparrow. 

Early last week the Tree Sparrows were busy in and out of the boxes carrying feathers and chirruping away, but their homebuilding seems to have come to a stop for now. Maybe things will warm up soon? 

Tree Sparrow

Look in to Another Bird Blog soon and find out if Spring ever springs. In the meantime check Anni who would rather be birding or  Madge's Weekly Top Shot.